Revelation22:1 demystfied.

Throne (Rev. 22:1)

THRONE

"The Throne of God and of the Lamb"

"Then he showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb." - Rev. 22:1, RSV.

Some trinitarians claim that if there is only one throne that God and the Lamb share, then they both must be God. If we carefully examined what this scripture actually says, most of us would probably reject such reasoning out of hand. However, for those who may still have a problem with it, let's examine the subject.

First, let's look at some scriptures where "throne" is used:

(1) "Let the king and his throne be guiltless" - 2 Sam. 14:9, RSV.

(2) "Do not swear at all: either by heaven, for it is God's throne ...." - Is. 66:1; Mt 5:34; 23:22.

(3) "Blessed be Jehovah thy God, who delighted in thee, to set thee on his throne." - 2 Chronicles 9:8, ASV.

(4) "Then Solomon sat on the throne of Jehovah as king instead of David his father." - 1 Chron. 29:23, ASV.

(5) "He [Jesus] will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord will give him the throne of his father David ... his kingdom will never end." - Luke 1:32.

(6) "[Jesus] sat down at the right hand of the throne of God." - Heb. 12:2, NASB.

(7) "To him who overcomes, I [Jesus] will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I overcame and sat down with my Father on his throne." - Rev. 3:21, NIV.

(8) "Round the throne [of God] were twenty-four thrones, and seated on the thrones were 24 elders...with golden crowns upon their heads." - Rev. 4:4, RSV.

("The 24 elders on their thrones....represent...the heads of the 12 tribes together with the 12 apostles." - The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, p. 615, v. 2; also, see New Oxford Annotated Bible [1977 ed.] f.n. for Rev. 4:4.) - cf. Rev. 20:4, 6.

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I believe that the majority of people who truly want to approach this subject fairly and objectively could find honest alternatives to the trinitarian argument found at the beginning of this page merely by examining the above scriptures carefully.

Therefore, most people should stop at this point and review, analyze, and correlate the above scriptures. Then they should ask themselves what interpretations could honestly be found for the scripture quoted in the heading of this paper. Those who still can see no honest alternative to the trinitarian interpretation might want to turn the page for a further discussion.

Scriptures (1) and (2) quoted above show some of the Bible's figurative meanings for the word "throne." The first, of course, shows that "throne" can stand for the rule or authority of a person. The second shows "throne" may include the entire location (room, building, city, territory, etc.) where that government is stationed.

Scriptures (3) and (4) show that the "throne" or authority of a much higher ruler can be delegated to another, much inferior ruler. Even King David (and Solomon) was said to be sitting on God's throne. That is, he wielded the authority over God's people on earth as a representative for God. So it was the throne of God and of David and of Solomon.

Scripture (5) shows that Jesus, like David, sat "on the throne of Jehovah."

Scripture (6) shows that when Jesus assumed David's God-given authority (or throne) over God's people, he "sat at the right hand of the Throne of God." Cf. Ps 110:1 where Jesus is to sit at the right hand of Jehovah. A footnote in the very trinitarian The NIV Study Bible for Ps. 110:1 tells us:

"right hand.... thus he [Christ] is made second in authority to God himself. NT references to Jesus' exaltation to this position are many (see...Mark 16:19;...Acts 2:33-36;...Heb 10:12-13)." Compare the NIVSB footnote for Mark 16:19 - "right hand of God. A position of authority second only to God's." - The NIV Study Bible, Zondervan, 1985.

Scriptures (7) and (8) similarly show that Jesus' sitting on his own (subordinate) throne (Rev. 3:21) can be figuratively described as sitting "down with my Father on his throne" (who, in effect, shares some of his authority with Christ). The same description then applies to the Apostles who "sit with me on my throne" (Rev. 3:21) which can also be described as sitting upon their own separate thrones around the throne of God (Rev. 4:4) because the Christ shares some of his God-given authority with them. (See The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, Vol. 3, p. 588.)

As in certain other "trinitarian" interpretations the separate consideration of God and Christ proves in itself that Christ is not God. (It might have been worth considering, at least, if it said "the throne of the Father and of the Lamb.")

Obviously, we wouldn't give a thought to the "Godhood" of David and Solomon if we saw a reference to "the throne of God and David and Solomon" - cf. scriptures (3) and (4) above! We are speaking of only one throne (perhaps), but there is certainly no reason to think that one throne unites all three mentioned who had the authority symbolized by that throne!

And the fact that God is mentioned as one person (and David and Solomon as others) precludes any possibility of honest error. For example, even when we add the testimony of the scripture which says that all the assembly bowed down and worshiped ["shachah"] Jehovah and King David (1 Chron. 29:20 - see the WORSHIP study paper), we still wouldn't reason that David was Jehovah! The fact that they are so clearly represented as two separate individuals compels us to find some other solution to the problem of what seems to be "equal worship" (unless, of course, you already have an unshakable tradition or mindset that David is Jehovah). So why should we accept such poor reasoning for Rev. 22:1?

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"Then I saw a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain, standing in the center of the throne [of God]." - Rev. 5:6, NIV.

Some trinitarians also imply that the slain Lamb (obviously the heavenly-resurrected Christ) must be God because he is in the middle of God's throne in this verse.

There is never any doubt that the one seated on God's throne in Rev. 4 and 5 is God.

"They [the 24 elders] lay their crowns before the throne and say: `You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things." - Rev. 4:10, 11 NASB.

But the Lamb is never called God, nor does he sit on the throne of God in these two chapters. He approaches God, and is clearly differentiated from God:

"To him who sits on the throne [God] and to the Lamb, be blessing and honor and glory...." Rev. 5:13, NASB.

So why is the Lamb standing in the center of the throne of God? Well here is how it reads in the original Greek: "And I saw in midst of the throne (en meso tou thronou) ... lamb standing...." Thayer tells us of this NT Greek word meso:

"in midst of, i.e. in the space within, tou thronou [`the throne'] (which must be conceived of as having a semicircular shape [c-shaped]: Rev. iv. 6; v. 6."

Thayer continues with an explanation of Rev. 5:6 that meso means

"between the throne and the four living creatures and the elders (i.e. in the vacant space between the throne and the living creatures [on one side] and elders [on the other side], accordingly nearest the throne." - p. 402, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, Baker Book House.

Highly trinitarian New Testament expert A. T. Robertson also takes this to mean "before" or in front of the throne. - Word Pictures in the New Testament, Vol. vi, p. 328.

Accordingly, many modern trinitarian translations use "between" here (rather than "in the center of"): "between the throne and the four living creatures"- (1) RSV, (2) The Jerusalem Bible, (3) NASB, (4) NAB (1970 ed.), (5) NRSV, (6) The Amplified Bible (1965), (7) MLB (1969), (8) Beck's The Holy Bible in the Language of Today (1976), (9) C. B. Williams' New Testament in the Language of the People (1963), (10) REB, (11) Living Bible.

But no matter how you wish to translate en meso tou thronou, it is obvious that the Lamb's being there does not make him God. Simply look at Rev. 4:6 and the complete Rev. 5:6. We see in Rev. 4:6 that the four living creatures are en meso tou thronou just as the lamb is in 5:6! If that means the Lamb is God, then it also means the four living creatures are God!

A further examination of Rev. 4:6 reveals this additional information concerning "en meso tou thronou" and the throne of God. These 4 living creatures ("beasts" - KJV) are "in the midst of the throne and around the throne." This could mean that they are positioned around the throne so that each one is standing in the center of each side. For that reason, the translators of TEV and GNB translated it:

"surrounding the throne on each of its sides." CBW and Beck both translate: "in the middle of each side of the throne." (Cf. RSV, MLB, and LB.)

This understanding and these renderings by modern trinitarian Bibles correlate well with Ezekiel's vision of Jehovah's throne at Ezek. 1:15-22 where the 4 living creatures (Cherubs) are stationed at each corner of the throne (or chariot which supports the throne).

It could also mean the four living creatures are in the central position in heaven (or in the throne room) where the throne of God is located. For this reason, The Jerusalem Bible reads: "in the center, grouped around the throne itself."

The above gives us good evidence for determining what en meso tou thronou may mean for the position of the Lamb in Rev. 5:6.

Or merely examine all of the scripture in question. Rev. 5:6 reads literally in the Greek:

"And I saw in midst of the throne [en meso tou thronou] and of the four living [creatures] and in midst of [en meso] the older persons lamb having stood as having been slaughtered."

Again we see the four living creatures in the "midst" of the throne, and also the Lamb is in the "midst" of the 24 elders. The 24 elders, then, must also be in the "midst" of the throne with Jesus. So, this trinitarian "evidence" would mean the 24 elders are God too!

Let's examine the scriptural visions of God on his throne in a little more detail.

Ezekiel's inspired vision of God on his throne shows these details:

"From the midst of it [the vision of fire] came the likeness of four living creatures [Cherubs, angels]. And this was their appearance: they had the form of men, but each had four faces, and each of them had four wings." - Ezek. 1:5, 6, RSV.

Notice that Ezekiel tells us that these 4 Cherubs at the 4 corners of God's throne (Ezek. 1:26) look just like men except for 4 faces (and wings) which are further described in verses 10, 11. We know, therefore, exactly what they looked like. Any significant variation from a man's likeness has been carefully explained by Ezekiel.

Now look at the description of God himself as Ezekiel continues his vision. Ezekiel again tells us that "seated above the...throne was a likeness as it were of a human form." - Ezek. 1:26, RSV. And again Ezekiel describes all the significant differences from the appearance of a man (v. 27): brightness, gleaming like glowing bronze, fiery appearance from the waist down. Except for these significant differences the vision of God looks like a man! Not three persons; not a man with three heads; not a man with three faces, etc. but just like a man!

IF God were 3 persons, Ezekiel's vision surely would have given us some indication of that (such as his description in this very same vision of the 4 aspects of each of the 4 Cherubs shown figuratively by 4 distinctive faces for each person which he gave just before this description of God).

But, instead, we are shown the one person, like a man seated on God's throne whereas trinitarians should be insisting that three equal persons should be somehow represented there!

"This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of Jehovah." - Ezekiel 1:28, ASV and The King James II Version, Fourth Ed.

We see the same thing in the throne visions of Rev. 4 and 5 and 19:4.

"lo, a throne stood in heaven, with one seated on the throne! And he who sat there [the Lamb later approaches this one - vv. 6, 7] appeared like jasper and carnelian and round the throne was a rainbow...." - Rev. 4:2, 3, RSV.

Obviously this is a single person who differs from the likeness of a man only in the brilliant, glowing colors of his person. (Notice that John doesn't hesitate to describe the figurative details of the 4 cherubs as they differ from human likenesses - as did Ezekiel above - in vv. 6, 7 and even describes a figurative 7-headed beast of his own in Rev. 13:1.) But John, who is, of course, very familiar with the figurative descriptions of Ezekiel (4-faced person) and Daniel (4-headed beast) uses nothing (figurative or literal) to represent God as anything more than a single person!

This single person on the throne is obviously the only true God, the creator (Rev. 4:10, 11 - see The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, Vol. 3, p. 588) and this does not include the person of Jesus Christ: "Salvation belongs to our God who sits upon the throne, and to the Lamb." - Rev. 7:10, RSV. ("All glory to him who alone is God, who saves us through Jesus Christ our Lord" - Jude 25, Living Bible. - cf. John 17:1, 3, NEB.)

This one person, with the likeness of a man, seated upon the throne is worshiped by those in heaven as Jehovah God!

"and the 24 elders and the 4 living creatures fell down and worshiped God who is seated on the throne, saying, `Amen, Hallelujah!'" - Rev. 19:4, RSV.

"Hallelujah," as is well known, means "Praise Jehovah." (Today's Dictionary of the Bible; Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary, etc.)

Notice Rev. 21:3, 5.

"And I heard a loud voice from the throne. [So this must be God, right? - - - Wrong!], saying, `Behold the tabernacle of God is among men and He shall dwell among them, and they shall be His peoples, and God Himself shall be among them.'"

Now notice in verse 5:

"And He who sits on the throne said, `Behold I am making all things new.'" - NASB.

We see that although the first voice was from the throne, it was still not from God. The second voice was from the one who sits on the throne (God).

Another vision of God in heaven is noteworthy. "Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw God's glory and Jesus standing at the right side of God." - Acts 7:55, TEV.

Please note: God is a single person here who is not Jesus Christ. If it had said, "Stephen ... saw God's glory. Yes, he saw Jesus standing at the right side of the Father," then we could accept one possible interpretation as Jesus and the Father both being God. (But why isn't the "person" of the Holy Spirit standing here also - or in any other vision of God in heaven?) But as it's worded by the inspired Bible writer, this is simply not a permissible interpretation. Yes, we never see God represented in visions, dreams, etc. as more than one person (and this person is never Jesus or the Holy Spirit). Whenever personality can be determined, the person shown to be God in heaven is always the Father, Jehovah alone.

We never find the word "trinity" (nor anything remotely equivalent to it) used by the Bible writers. We don't even find the word "three" used to describe God in any sense! ("God is three;" "There is only one God in three persons;" "Jehovah is three;" etc.) This alone makes the "evidence" for a trinity totally incredible and completely unacceptable! - see the IMAGE study paper.

So we find, as usual, that the evidence for a Trinity is so ambiguous, so indirect, that the same type of "evidence" can be used to "prove" that many others are "God" - see the "TRIN-TYPE" study paper. This simply cannot be! Anything of such essential importance to man's salvation and God's true worship cannot be so inconclusive.

Can we imagine that other teachings of such essential importance to man's salvation could be so vague? Just look at the massive number of straight-forward statements that openly declare that Jesus is the Messiah! He is our Savior, and we had better believe it if we want to please God and receive life! We don't have to add up little bits and pieces, hints, strained interpretations, and vague references to patch together a life-saving doctrine. God clearly and repeatedly reveals the necessities for life. (See MINOR 14-15)

Watchtower society's commentary on 'hell'

HELL

 

 

A word used in the King James Version (as well as in the Catholic Douay Version and most older translations) to translate the Hebrew sheʼohl′ and the Greek hai′des. In the King James Version the word “hell” is rendered from sheʼohl′ 31 times and from hai′des 10 times. This version is not consistent, however, since sheʼohl′ is also translated 31 times “grave” and 3 times “pit.” In the Douay Version sheʼohl′ is rendered “hell” 64 times, “pit” once, and “death” once.

In 1885, with the publication of the complete English Revised Version, the original word sheʼohl′ was in many places transliterated into the English text of the Hebrew Scriptures, though, in most occurrences, “grave” and “pit” were used, and “hell” is found some 14 times. This was a point on which the American committee disagreed with the British revisers, and so, when producing the American Standard Version (1901) they transliterated sheʼohl′ in all 65 of its appearances. Both versions transliterated hai′des in the Christian Greek Scriptures in all ten of its occurrences, though the Greek word Ge′en·na (English, “Gehenna”) is rendered “hell” throughout, as is true of many other modern translations.

Concerning this use of “hell” to translate these original words from the Hebrew and Greek, Vine’s Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words (1981, Vol. 2, p. 187) says: “HADES . . . It corresponds to ‘Sheol’ in the O.T. [Old Testament]. In the A.V. of the O.T. [Old Testament] and N.T. [New Testament], it has been unhappily rendered ‘Hell.’”

Collier’s Encyclopedia (1986, Vol. 12, p. 28) says concerning “Hell”: “First it stands for the Hebrew Sheol of the Old Testament and the Greek Hades of the Septuagint and New Testament. Since Sheol in Old Testament times referred simply to the abode of the dead and suggested no moral distinctions, the word ‘hell,’ as understood today, is not a happy translation.”

It is, in fact, because of the way that the word “hell” is understood today that it is such an unsatisfactory translation of these original Bible words. Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, unabridged, under “Hell” says: “fr[om] . . . helan to conceal.” The word “hell” thus originally conveyed no thought of heat or torment but simply of a ‘covered over or concealed place.’ In the old English dialect the expression “helling potatoes” meant, not to roast them, but simply to place the potatoes in the ground or in a cellar.

The meaning given today to the word “hell” is that portrayed in Dante’s Divine Comedy and Milton’s Paradise Lost, which meaning is completely foreign to the original definition of the word. The idea of a “hell” of fiery torment, however, dates back long before Dante or Milton. The Grolier Universal Encyclopedia (1971, Vol. 9, p. 205) under “Hell” says: “Hindus and Buddhists regard hell as a place of spiritual cleansing and final restoration. Islamic tradition considers it as a place of everlasting punishment.” The idea of suffering after death is found among the pagan religious teachings of ancient peoples in Babylon and Egypt. Babylonian and Assyrian beliefs depicted the “nether world . . . as a place full of horrors, . . . presided over by gods and demons of great strength and fierceness.” Although ancient Egyptian religious texts do not teach that the burning of any individual victim would go on forever, they do portray the “Other World” as featuring “pits of fire” for “the damned.”—The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, by Morris Jastrow, Jr., 1898, p. 581; The Book of the Dead, with introduction by E. Wallis Budge, 1960, pp. 135, 144, 149, 151, 153, 161, 200.

“Hellfire” has been a basic teaching in Christendom for many centuries. It is understandable why The Encyclopedia Americana (1956, Vol. XIV, p. 81) said: “Much confusion and misunderstanding has been caused through the early translators of the Bible persistently rendering the Hebrew Sheol and the Greek Hades and Gehenna by the word hell. The simple transliteration of these words by the translators of the revised editions of the Bible has not sufficed to appreciably clear up this confusion and misconception.” Nevertheless, such transliteration and consistent rendering does enable the Bible student to make an accurate comparison of the texts in which these original words appear and, with open mind, thereby to arrive at a correct understanding of their true significance.—See GEHENNA; GRAVE; HADES; SHEOL; TARTARUS.

On apoptosis or the death of Darwinism.

Apoptosis Is Unchanged from Cambrian Corals to Humans

Science progresses when investigators boldly question assumptions. Look at the assumption that a group of scientists questioned: Darwinian evolution. Eight scientists from San Diego State University, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute published a bombshell in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences:

The Precambrian explosion [they mean the Cambrian explosion] led to the rapid appearance of most major animal phyla alive today. It has been argued that the complexity of life has steadily increased since that event. Here we challenge this hypothesis through the characterization of apoptosis in reef-building corals, representatives of some of the earliest animals. Bioinformatic analysis reveals that all of the major components of the death receptor pathway are present in coral with high-predicted structural conservation with Homo sapiens. (Emphasis added.)

Apoptosis is "programmed cell death." When a cell becomes unstable or diseased, genetic algorithms kill it in an orderly way, to prevent further harm to the organism. Specialized enzymes (especially the TNF superfamilies) switch on the program, setting locked-up destroyers called caspases loose in the cell. The microbiologist can see bubbles and blisters forming (blebbing), followed by complete disruption of the cell and all its parts (this is animated in a sequence in Metamorphosis: The Beauty and Design of Butterflies, where the caterpillar parts are shown breaking down inside the chrysalis).

Corals have many of the same TNF enzymes that humans do. This got the team wondering:

The TNF receptor-ligand superfamilies (TNFRSF/TNFSF) are central mediators of the death receptor pathway, and the predicted proteome of Acropora digitifera contains more putative coral TNFRSF members than any organism described thus far, including humans. This high abundance of TNFRSF members, as well as the predicted structural conservation of other death receptor signaling proteins, led us to wonder what would happen if corals were exposed to a member of the human TNFSF (HuTNFα).

In a series of experiments, they inserted coral enzymes into human cells. The human cells died. Then they ran the reciprocal experiment, putting human TNF enzymes into coral, and its cells died too. Even the bleaching process was seen using human enzymes. The agents of death were perfectly interchangeable, despite 550 million years for evolution to have increased the complexity of the system.

HuTNFα was found to bind directly to coral cells, increase caspase activity, cause apoptotic blebbing and cell death, and finally induce coral bleaching. Next, immortalized human T cells (Jurkats) expressing a functional death receptor pathway (WT) and a corresponding Fas-associated death domain protein (FADD) KO cell line were exposed to a coral TNFSF member (AdTNF1) identified and purified here. AdTNF1 treatment resulted in significantly higher cell death (P < 0.0001) in WT Jurkats compared with the corresponding FADD KO, demonstrating that coral AdTNF1 activates the H. sapiens death receptor pathway. Taken together, these data show remarkable conservation of the TNF-induced apoptotic response representing 550 My of functional conservation.

Obviously, conservation is not evolution. This is evidence against Darwinian evolution on both sides of the coin: it shows no evolutionary "progress" despite all that time, and it shows a complex system appearing abruptly right at the beginning of complex animal origins. The significance of this discovery was not lost on the team: "Here we show that TNF induced apoptosis has been functionally maintained for more than half a billion years of evolution."

Abrupt appearance, and remarkable stasis: it's a common theme in biology. Can they rescue Darwinism from this evidence?

Phylogenetic analysis indicates a deep evolutionary origin of the TNFSF and TNFRSF that precedes the divergence of vertebrates and invertebrates. The most ancient and well-defined invertebrate TNF ligand-receptor system that has been described to date is that of the fruit fly Drosophila melangastor [melanogaster, sic passim]. D. melangastor posseses just one member of both the TNFRSF/TNFSF, in contrast to humans who have 18 and 29, respectively. This difference has led to the widely accepted hypothesis that the TNF ligand-receptor superfamily expanded after the divergence of invertebrates and vertebrates.

In this paper, we describe the annotation of 40 members of the TNFRSF and 13 members of the TNFSF in the reef building coral A. digitifera, suggesting that key parts of the TNF receptor ligand superfamily have been lost in D. melangastor but maintained in coral. Comparison of these coral TNFSF/TNFRSF members to those of Homo sapiens reveals high genetic and predicted structural conservation.

Instead of confirming Darwinian expectations, they debunked "the widely accepted hypothesis" that the complexity of the TNF ligand system should have increased. No; it was there from the beginning. Some animals lost some of it, but the most "primitive" Cambrian animals had it, and it works in human cells today.

This is no small matter. Most of the 53 proteins (containing 228 to 533 amino acids apiece) show "high amino acid conservation" with their human counterparts, especially at the active sites. From extreme ends of the animal complexity scale, tens of thousands of amino acids in these families of enzymes show no evolution at all. What's more, the coral's system appears even more complex than ours. "Compared with previously published work on members of the TNFRSF," they say, "corals contain the most diverse TNFRSF repertoire of any organism described to date, including humans."

About the only thing they could say in support of Darwinian evolution from these data is that evolution is a "non-linear process." If so, that is very different from the vision Darwin had of the slow, gradual accumulation of small variations.

This is but one more instance in a huge body of evidence supporting intelligent design for the origin of animal body plans, as Stephen Meyer explains further in Darwin's Doubt (now in paperback with an added chapter answering critics of the first edition). Apoptosis is but one mechanism that makes an organism work. It plays important roles in embryonic development as well as disease prevention. When you add up all the other systems required to build and maintain an animal, on so many levels, Darwinism seems clearly inadequate to the account for them. The only cause we know of that is able to explain the observations, from the overall forms down to the specific amino acids, is intelligent design.